The Big Meow

Tom Howard and George Shelton are a couple of incompetent detectives. They are ordered by a judge to follow "Kitty the Cat" to lead them to her gangster boyfriend. Instead, they follow the judge's wife.

It's a remake of 1930's Buster West-Tom Patricola short DON'T GIVE UP. The short subject producers would often reuse a script, hoping that different performers would give it a fresh look, at least when it was not Jules White and the Three Stooges doing the same thing for the fifth time. Howard is quite amusing with his asides.

"The Big Meow" is a remake of a rather poor short from just four years previous, "Don't Give Up". This time instead of starring Buster West, it stars Tom Howard and George Shelton...with both men essentially taking on West's solo role.

When the story begins, Harry the Heaver calls a judge and threatens him. The police, however, have no idea where the crook is...so he hires two idiots to follow Harry's girlfriend so that they can lead them to his hideout. Unfortunately, since they are pretty dim, they end up following the judge's wife instead! What's next? See the film.

So is that short any better than the original? Well, it really can't help but be better!! But that still is no rousing endorsemsent! While marginally better, there is a cat angle with lots of meowing that is pretty annoying and an unwelcomed 'improvement' over the first film.

The bottom line is that the basic plot of this short is actually very good. But the writing and acting in BOTH shorts is just poor and leaves you wondering how they couldn't get more laughs out of a basically sound story idea.